


Write a Polite Note

by RiaZendira



Series: When you Can't Lead a Horse to Water [2]
Category: White Collar
Genre: Alternate Universe, Multi, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-09
Updated: 2011-12-09
Packaged: 2017-10-27 02:44:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/290802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RiaZendira/pseuds/RiaZendira
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tag has pretty much been Peter’s favorite game since 1st grade...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Write a Polite Note

When Peter met El all those surprisingly short years ago, he just knew there was something about her. All his professional life Peter’s caught people for a living. Meeting El, suddenly for the first time he wanted to catch someone for himself, not for law and order or to uphold what was right, but because she was clever and she made it very clear she wanted to play tag. And tag has pretty much been Peter’s favorite game since 1st grade. 

Of course, Peter’s favorite part of tag has always been the chase.  El led him on a merry one before she finally told him she thought he was worth keeping. Peter sometimes wonders if the whole chase part of their courtship wasn’t just for him, because he’s almost certain El had him picked out, picked up, and tied in a pretty bow at first sight. And he knows his wife is more than clever enough to figure out that he wouldn’t have married someone who didn’t know how to play his favorite game.

Peter’s pretty sure that before he even knew who Neal was, he already knew who Neal was. Now that he’s got a name, he can go back and connect it with the cases he’s been puzzling over for the last 6 months or so, trying to get proof of his hunch that all these crimes were pulled off by the same guy. Peter is completely sure that even before he knew who Neal was, he liked him. Neal’s been a challenge from the beginning, and he’s still a challenge even now that Peter has more information to play with. Trying to catch Neal is a whole new level of the cat and mouse game than Peter’s ever gotten to play before.  It’s a dance with so much attention to detail that some times he wonders if he’ll trip over his own feet trying to find Neal’s in the crowd. 

He was sharp, he was sneaky, he was _on_ , baby! He was finding the evidence, hunting the bad guy, and having a great time doing it. It was nearly a year into the Caffrey case when Peter realized he’d felt all this before. Which was about when his brain wandered off to recall dating El and the first time he actually managed to convince her to come back to his place after their (he’s really not sure what number) dinner date. He was sharp, he was sneaky, he was so going to get _laid_ , baby!  The electric feeling of wanting, having the end of the chase nearly in his grasp, was exactly the same as he snapped up all evidence of Neal. Well shit...

The one thing Peter is really not sure about is when El came to this realization too. He’s fairly certain she has, but since she hasn’t actually said anything, he can’t be sure. El is a mystery wrapped in an enigma after all. She just knows things. He’s never been quite sure how. This was a great part of her appeal though, the fact that he almost never had to actually talk to get his point across. He knows it’s why he’ll never ever be bored with her. She’s not so much one step ahead of him at all times as she is one step to the side and two up. 

Peter always forgets how tall El is. This shouldn’t be a hard thing, remembering how tall your wife actually is, but somehow, he remembers her as being larger than she actually is right up until the moment when he slides his arms around her. The fact that he actually has to bend his head down to kiss her is its own moment of surprise as well. It’s not the fact that she wears heels that does this, he knows. It’s that she’s just so much bigger in his mind’s eye. Elizabeth is an epic in a tiny package, one that he wants to never stop reading.

It disconcerts Peter sometimes the way his mind will bounce from thinking about Neal and the latest bits of evidence of Caffrey’s trail to recalling his fondest thoughts of his wife. He tells himself it’s just because there’s only so much room in one brain, and it makes sense that he’d have to switch from work to personal rapidly at times. He never quite believes himself though. He stops believing himself at all when he gets his first actual photograph of Neal Caffrey. The man could be his wife’s evil fraternal twin. And wow is that a thought he’s not sure his brain is up to processing. 

For all his difficulties pondering his relationship with Neal Caffrey (and hello brain, “relationship”?) he doesn’t stumble at all when he finally meets the man in person. He’s calm, he’s cool, he’s going to find his handcuffs somewhere- He looks up to find Neal’s already gone. And this disappoints him not at all. He really didn’t want Caffrey to be easy.  Neal can’t be easy and still live up to all the hype Peter has built around him. He can’t professionally afford to have Neal be that easy either, or his boss is going to wonder why it’s taken Peter more than a year to get even this close. Peter’s not worried anyone else will catch him though, Neal’s loyal.   
  
When Peter returns home the day of his first actual meeting with his best tag partner since El, Elizabeth greets him with a huge, if somewhat disconcerting, smile.  The reason for the smile becomes clear a moment later when she turns so that he can see the dinning room table behind her and the flower arrangement roughly the size of a house sitting on it. 

“Thank you honey, they’re beautiful,” El says moving in for a kiss. “I wasn’t sure you’d remember.”

Caught deer like in her shining eyes, he considers trying to lie for exactly negative numbers of seconds before settling on raising an eyebrow at her so that she’ll read his guilt on his face. 

“You didn’t remember.” It’s a statement without even the slightest pretense at being a question. “Then who sent me flowers for the anniversary of our first date? And how do you usually manage to remember?”  El’s expression isn’t angry, thank god, but more a mixture of confused and amused.  He flails a hand at the flower arrangement trying to find a card attached to it somewhere. El reaches past him and deftly plucks the card from where it’s hidden behind a perfectly positioned purple and white iris. 

“Dearest Elizabeth, Please accept these as a token of appreciation and apology for delaying your husband’s return tonight. I’ll do my best to return him promptly whenever I borrow him in the future. Yours Always, Neal,” El’s eyebrows have nearly absconded from her forehead entirely when she reaches the end of the note. 

“Peter, why is a con man flirting with me?” She’s holding back laughter by biting her lip, and her whole body is shaking with amusement as she waits for his answer. 

It’s much later, as he stands behind her as she leans over the computer screen, that he learns that all the irises in the arrangement have names like “Almost Rich”, “Dusky Challenger”, “Conjuration”, and “Gallant Rogue”. It’s the single bloom in the center named “Foxy Lady” that irks him the most though. Neal Caffrey is apparently a master of multitasking, with his ability to send sneaky insult, challenge, and love letter to Peter’s wife all in one floral arrangement.  He’s not the least bit jealous that none of the flowers appears to be complimenting him, not at all. 

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted at: http://riazendira.dreamwidth.org/15788.html where additional author's notes are available.


End file.
